Waverly Zhao:
What changed was students for once felt united and felt that they weren’t completely alone in our state that in our recent past hasn’t been very inclusive and hasn’t been the leader of social justice and civil rights issues as it previously was.
Alec Patton:
This is High Tech High Unboxed. I’m Alec Patton, and that was the voice of Waverly Zhao, co-founder of Iowa WTF. This is the second and final part of our series about Iowa WTF, a group of high school students who are taking a stand against the laws banning meaningful conversation about US history, sexuality, and gender identity in Iowa schools. If you haven’t listened to part 1 yet, don’t worry. This episode will stand alone and you can go back and listen to part 1 as a prequel afterwards.
In both of these episodes, I talked to Waverly and another co-founder David Lee. When we left Waverly and David at the end of the last episode, they just finished their first walkout in response to several bills that the state legislature had just passed limiting what teachers were allowed to talk about in school. Several schools had joined the walkout. They’d got some local press coverage. Overall, it felt like a success. And something I didn’t totally understand when we recorded the first episode, at this point, Iowa WTF had a grand total of six members, all high school students. We started this conversation by talking about who wasn’t in Iowa WTF. Were there adults involved in this?
David Lee:
Not really. It was mainly just high school students on a Zoom call just talking it out. Each of our schools had some type of mentor that we worked with for our individual clubs, and those were our sponsors, our teacher sponsors, et cetera. But in terms of the organization itself, I think one of the harder things we’ve had to understand how to navigate was sustainability Without that adult mentor, because there’s not a lot of consistency. If we leave, we have to make sure that the other members that are coming into Iowa WTF understand how to operate it, understand what the purpose is for. And if you see in schools, oftentimes the clubs without adult mentors are the ones to go really quickly. And so that is something that Iowa WTF has been struggling with in the past, but I think not having that adult’s presence was essential for the organization to thrive.
Waverly Zhao:
Yeah, I agree. I think from the very beginning of our group, we understood that it wouldn’t be the same if we did bring in adults, but then also just trying to navigate the challenges that come with being all students and under the age of 18 at the time, and what that meant as far as money, funding, mobilization, trying to get students to places, et cetera.
David Lee:
Yeah. And if you look at a lot of the other statewide organizations, March for Our Lives is completely led by youth. And so Iowa QSA, which we partnered up with later, and they were also completely run by youth under the age of 24. So these organizations thrive when there is a core leadership that can get things done, but there’s definitely some challenges without adult mentors helping us out.
Alec Patton:
Why was it important to not have adults around?
Waverly Zhao:
I think for me it was important because they already are in every level of leadership and social justice. So we need a space where youth are the center and are fully able to elevate their voices and their ideas and not have that be at the will of an adult. And I think that’s pretty true for a lot of the other organizations that are youth-led in Iowa. We already have so many other progressive adult-led organizations, and it’s sometimes difficult when you are young and in there because you’re completely alone. And it can be a little bit scary to try to speak up on things when it’s a room full of older people who also maybe hold a connotation about your age like, “Oh, they’re young and they don’t know anything.” But it’s like, “Well, I’m young but I have things to say. I have an experience that matters.” So that’s what Iowa WTF wanted to keep center.
David Lee:
Another thing was the perception from the outside is something we studied a little bit because oftentimes having an adult in the organization, people would think that these adults were navigating what we were going to say and they were the ones ordering us around and making decisions. And we didn’t want any of that, so we tried to keep all of the adults a partnership once we had things going on and they wanted to contribute to our organization, but they weren’t the ones making the decisions so we could say that the youth were actually leading this.
Waverly Zhao:
Yeah. David brings up an ongoing problem with a lot of the opposition in Iowa claiming that all of the young people speaking out and organizing are just indoctrinated by adults. So it was important that we say, “No, we know what we’re doing.”
Alec Patton:
Have people made that accusation to you?
David Lee:
Of course.
Waverly Zhao:
Multiple times.
Alec Patton:
Where is that happening? Are people coming up to you in the street? Are they talking to you at meetings? Is it all online?
David Lee:
I think it’s a mixture. Online is the most prevalent. There are times when at meetings, you get the sense that they don’t care about what you’re about to say. So I was at the capitol two weeks ago and there was a bill about having educators have guns in school to protect kids from school shooters. And on that bill, there were several youth that were talking. And the presiding representative, you could see them making an effort to listen but none of the words actually went through their ears until at the end, it didn’t really matter what the students contributed to that meeting. And that kind of perception is popularized in such meetings where the adults have the power.
And so I think Iowa WTFF was trying to get away from all of that. We were doing activism not from the inside but also from the outside and where our voices would be more amplified by other youth and other adults that were ready to listen. And so that’s what we were trying to navigate. It happens on social media a lot, it happens in meetings, and you just go along with it.
Waverly Zhao:
I’ve had experiences, again on social media of people just putting comments like, “Oh, here’s the far left indoctrinating kids again in our schools.” It’s like where did you even get this information? But then I’ve also had it happen in state legislature subcommittee meetings of people from my school district going to complain and testify in a subcommittee meeting about the work that I was doing in our school district and saying that it was because I was being indoctrinated by adult groups that were working towards anti-racism, which not only undermined everything I had been trying to do and undermined all of the youth leaders that were trying to speak out, but it also just undermined the whole idea of coalition-building and the fact that it’s so constraining to be young in these spaces.
And so at some point we do have to lean a little bit on adult help and adult support, but that shouldn’t mean that we’re immediately indoctrinated by them and that we can’t think for ourselves and speak for ourselves and understand the things that are happening to us. And then I’ve also had it happen when I was the student representative on my school board, a lot of the times when I would speak out, I would immediately be shut down by some of the members on the board because they thought that I was just speaking on behalf of adults once again. And I’m like, “I’m literally the student representative. I’m here to speak for students and speak about my experience in our school. And that doesn’t have to be something that I can only speak on because an adult told me what to say.” As you can tell from how I was talking about this, it’s very frustrating, but it’s something that we just have to face and work around.
Alec Patton:
Do you have any sense of who your secret far left anti-racist adult masters are supposed to be?
Waverly Zhao:
I do. It’s groups that are also equally as outspoken and have also worked with us and groups that we at some point or another have posted things with their logo or something. So it’s like a, “Oh, you associate with this group? They’re indoctrinating you now.”
Alec Patton:
I see what you mean. So that’s an effective strategy from your opposition because-
Waverly Zhao:
Oh, yeah.
Alec Patton:
… you have to build coalition, but if anytime you build a coalition, people paint it as you being indoctrinated, it’s harder for you to make those connections.
Waverly Zhao:
Exactly.
Alec Patton:
That’s rough.
Waverly Zhao:
Yeah.
Alec Patton:
All right. That brings us nicely into the Don’t Say Gay legislation. Do you remember when you first became aware of that?
Waverly Zhao:
I worked in the legislature that session so I became aware of it from day 1 when it was introduced.
David Lee:
Yeah. And we learned it from Waverly and then it went up all around the news.
Waverly Zhao:
Yes.
Alec Patton:
What was your job in the legislature?
Waverly Zhao:
I worked as the House minority leaders page, so in the Democrat office in the house.
Alec Patton:
This is while you were a senior in high school?
Waverly Zhao:
Yes. I actually basically ended my senior year a semester early and just did two online classes to remain enrolled, but worked full-time in the legislature my spring semester.
Alec Patton:
What was your initial thought when you first heard about it?
Waverly Zhao:
“Here we go again” and “of course” and “I can’t believe they’re doing this again” and just shock, but also understanding the makeup of the legislature and the addition of very extreme far right ideation within the legislature in Iowa. I understood that it was impending. And after asking a little bit more questions from the people that had been in the legislature longer than me, like staffers, they told me that this is just another thing that has been happening consistently and not a lot of attention came to it before because all of these bills died immediately in subcommittee, but now with the super majority, they’re able to go onto the floor and make, I guess, more impact and be past like HFA was, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Alec Patton:
That’s all right. With HFA, it specifically applies to kindergarten to third grade. Was there a part of you that’s like, “Well, it’s maybe not that big a deal. It’s not going to affect high school. It’s not going to affect middle school”?
Waverly Zhao:
At the beginning, yes. And then they rolled out the amendment that would expand it to middle school and upper elementary. And so then that was when people started realizing, “Oh, wait.” And also the bill itself was extremely ambiguous. So even in subcommittee, members of the education committee that taught kindergarten and third grade, they were like, “If I read this book that has two moms, is that allowed?” And the sponsor and bill manager would always say, “Read the bill,” and never gave a direct answer. So anytime clarifying questions were asked, they were met with an equally ambiguous answer. And that just enraged people even more because it was like if you’re not even going to be open about what this bill does, that’s quite frightening.
David Lee:
Yeah. And it wasn’t just that bill. It was a host of other bills.
Waverly Zhao:
Oh, yeah.
David Lee:
Transgender athletes ban and not allowing trans kids to access transitioning medical procedures and medicine. There was a lot of other bills that were part of that discussion, and so we tried to share that as much as we could online.
Alec Patton:
Yeah. You had a post that went through a number of things that were all happening at once.
David Lee:
That’s what we’ve seen a lot in the state legislature, is they don’t just try and go for one. They try to ram in as much as they can so that in the mix, at least a few will be talked about and then the other ones will go past more easily. I guess it’s a strategy that has worked for Iowa because after those bills were introduced and in the popular discussion, there were other bills that year and the following year that were just as controversial and even more damning to the public education system. And so if you look at the schools now, they have book bans in public libraries. A host of books aren’t being allowed to be read in classrooms, and that’s more on a local level as well as a state level. So it trickles down.
Waverly Zhao:
Yeah. And it’s obviously, it’s an intersectional issue because all the books that are being banned are LGBTQ+ books and BIPOC books. So it’s very intentional about how strategic the people who are pushing these bills are being about the whole thing.
Alec Patton:
So Waverly, you hear about this first because you’re literally there. When did you share with Iowa WTF that this was happening?
Waverly Zhao:
I think I was texting multiple people, all the students that I knew like, “Oh my gosh, this is happening,” or, “I can’t believe this is happening,” or, “Here we go again. Here are these bills.” But it was actually our own Gemma who was in Iowa WTF and is in Iowa QSA or Queer Student Alliance, she was the one that suggested that we do another round of walkouts together with Iowa QSA and Iowa WTF, and she asked for my help with it and I was like, “Of course. That sounds awesome.”
Alec Patton:
What’s the first step if you’re planning statewide school walkouts?
Waverly Zhao:
The first step is writing a press release and somehow generating social media and just general media awareness about it. So while I was in the state legislature, I would hide in my office, not in my personal office but in my desk in my office, and I would just be typing emails. And I was just delegated with the task of getting news outlets to the specific schools that had signed up to walkout. So it was a lot of announcing that Iowa WTF wants to do statewide walkouts and then a lot of getting a list of the schools and getting a list of the student leaders that are going to be leading them and then putting them in contact with the media outlets that reached out to us from our press release that we did and making sure that the local news outlets were going to those schools. And then roping in other student leaders to take interviews before the walkouts even happened.
So a lot of phone calls, a lot of emails, a lot of running around and trying to meet with my school principal as well to make sure that it was okay to do the walkout and there were safety measures. And since we had one walkout under our belt already, I had an understanding of what we needed to do instead. So I requested that there were more administrators and more adult bodies present when we did walkout because of the counter protests that happened last time and the racism and homophobia that was projected by other students last time. So that was the starting phase of it.
Alec Patton:
I want to clarify something. So when you say making sure it was okay with the principal to do a school walkout, a school walkout is by definition not okay, right? It’s against the rules.
David Lee:
It’s not necessarily against the rules. We have constitutional rights. This was actually Tinker v. Des Moines.
Alec Patton:
Okay. Quick refresher on US history. Tinker v. Des Moines was a case that came before the US Supreme Court in 1969. The issue is that public schools in Des Moines, Iowa had suspended high school students for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the students. The ruling specifically declares that if school administrators are going to punish someone for protesting, they, quote, must be able to show that their action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint. Specifically, they needed to be able to demonstrate that the conduct of the students would materially and substantially interfere with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school. Let’s get back to David.
David Lee:
So that insured to us and to every public school across America that we had rights to protest as long as it didn’t create a disturbance in the classroom. And by definition, just walking out and not yelling or not making a scene in a classroom counts as not disrupting the classroom. And so that’s why walkouts have been a prominent type of protest in public schools. And so it is within our constitutional rights to do walkouts and to do protests that wouldn’t disturb a classroom.
Alec Patton:
First of all, shout out to Tinker versus Des Moines. That hadn’t occurred to me that you have that lineage.
David Lee:
Yeah, right in Iowa.
Alec Patton:
But they were wearing armbands, and there is a distinction between putting on an armband and going to class and walking out of class. If you skip class in a nonpolitical context, the constitution isn’t there to help you.
David Lee:
Oh, yeah. The students a lot of the times know that that’s going to happen and you’re likely going to get marked absent because that’s the standard procedure if you’re leaving a classroom for any undisclosed reason beforehand. That’s according to whatever school guidelines that they have. And so a lot of the students get marked absent, and we make sure that that is aware in our protesting student body. And we sometimes talk to the administration and the administration helps us out in that area where they won’t mark the student’s absent or they can talk to us about what time it’s going to happen. Maybe it’s towards the end of school so that if it’s a flex period where students have the freedom to do elective-type of little meetings at the end of school, then that’s when it takes place. And that’s what happened in Ames a lot of the times, is we were able to work with the administration and guarantee the safety but also work out some differences that we may have had in terms of what the students might be getting as blow back.
And you’re right, Tinker v. Des Moines and armbands is definitely not the same thing as walking out of a classroom, but essentially the ideas of that case was that if you were protesting and it doesn’t harm anybody else in your vicinity and it doesn’t cause a disruption in the learning environment, it’s not going to be against you and they can’t really legally do anything that can prevent you from walking out. And so that’s why these walkouts happen, not in the school building, but outside. They don’t want to cause a scene in the school because that is very disrupting. If we walkout, then that’s a different environment.
Waverly Zhao:
Yeah. There’s also a lot of rules about press on school campuses. So having leaders understand too that if you do have media come, you need to make sure that they are abiding by your school rules to limit the potential of you getting in trouble. And just general, we’re breaking rules but abiding by the ones that we do still have to follow.
Alec Patton:
So it sounds like Ames was pretty open to working with you. Were there schools where they just came down really hard on the kids?
Waverly Zhao:
In our past walkout, we knew that a private school, one of our founding members had a lot of issues with them. And obviously because it’s a private school, the parameters were different. But they didn’t walkout again for the We Say Gay walkouts. But I think it was more that a lot of the other schools that were involved this time around were from a lot more rural parts, like this expanded beyond just central Iowa this time. The numbers of students who walked out was as few as 10 to hundreds. And so I honestly don’t know exactly what the pushback at each school was, but I do know that students chose not to care if there was and continued with it anyways.
Alec Patton:
When did you start to have the sense of like, “Oh, this is getting big?”
Waverly Zhao:
When I got my call from a national news outlet that said that they heard about this story and wanted to cover it/
David Lee:
Yeah. And Waverly and Gemma were really proactive in trying to get the attention of other public schools and media outlets beforehand and making sure that people were aware about it beforehand because that’s always some little bit of a frustration for people organizing walkouts, is that nobody cares about it until after it happens. But we were planning ahead and they were making sure that people knew about it beforehand.
Alec Patton:
How did you know how to do that?
Waverly Zhao:
I didn’t, honestly. It was very trial and error. It was like, “Okay, how do I reach news outlets, press release?” And just scrapping together as many news contacts that I had received over the years and just mass sending out emails, texts, and just hoping for the best. It also was something that the media had already paid attention to. So when they got the word that students were upset about it and they were going to walkout across the state, that is headline news so of course they’re going to want to cover that. And it was a messy process and very stressful process, I will say, because I had never done anything like that before in that intense degree.
Alec Patton:
Do you have any pro tips for other kids based on your experience?
Waverly Zhao:
Give someone on the contact that will be available. I was in that position because I was not in school so I had access to my phone. Also, saving all of the people who have covered stories for you before, interviewed you in the past, that is how I get a lot of the news coverage is just by sending it to people that have interviewed me or other students in the past. And then also trying to get as many of the students at each school their contact info. Because sometimes when I would be asked, “Oh, what schools in eastern Iowa are walking out?” I’d be like, “Let me get back to you on that,” and be scrambling to find those students and figure out who was. So just having a list of contacts and just trying to remain organized using a or spreadsheet or something helps.
David Lee:
It’s very much like you try it and you fail and you learn from your errors and then you just figure out how to do it better.
Alec Patton:
And Waverly, did the House minority leader know what you were doing while this was going on?
Waverly Zhao:
I informed her that I would be missing work or leaving work early on the day my school was walking out and she asked why, and I said, “I’m leading a walkout at my school.” And she said, “Perfect. That’s totally fine.”
Alec Patton:
And leading up to the walkouts, I’m thinking about if you’re at a school where you’re 1 of 10 people who are going to do this, were they worried about their safety? What was going on with the other students? Was that a concern?
Waverly Zhao:
I think it definitely was. If I’m being completely honest, the organization of student to student conversation, like student organizer to student organizer conversation wasn’t as organized as getting press there. So it was very much us relying on their own local effort of organizing and just doing it at the same time as all of us.
David Lee:
We were concerned about it a little bit. And so the day before, I think, I made a video just to talk to all of the organizers and tell them that whatever happens in their walkouts, what matters is that you were there and that you were protesting because of what you believed. And it didn’t matter if there was 2 people or 20 people or 250, it matters that you were part of a bigger effort to try and get your voices heard on the statewide stage.
And I think that’s also the beauty of Iowa WTF is that all of these organizations and all of these clubs and all of the different people walking out at each individual school weren’t working directly for Iowa WTF and we were giving them instructions what to do. It was just a mass effort in order to build some type of unity, some type of coalition between all of these schools and make sure that they felt they were being part of something bigger than just the few people that might’ve walked out from their school. And that kind of individuality is what Iowa WTF values, and it functions off of the fact that these local organizations are thriving relatively on their own and we are just able to connect them with other local organizations throughout the state.
Waverly Zhao:
Yeah, it goes back to the coalition-building thing that we’ve been trying to do. On the day of the walkouts, there were more schools that walked out than I had ever been informed of because they saw that this was happening and chose to do it on their own, which is extremely brave in and of itself. But it also just goes to show the broader implications of our organization. We want to make sure that students aren’t constrained by having to go through the organization-oriented process. If you want to do a walkout and have it be with We Say Gay walkouts, of course we’re going to allow that. We’re not going to stop you. And we are happy that it reached people we didn’t even realize.
Alec Patton:
That’s interesting to me because you were so disciplined about “We get media. We talk to the principal first. We make sure that we’re not disruptive in class”. But I don’t know, did you have anybody who just went off? They didn’t plan it. They shouted in the classroom. Because that seems like a real liability to you all to have somebody who just decides, “Oh yeah, we’re part of this,” and they don’t do the disciplined work that you did.
Waverly Zhao:
If they did do that, it didn’t make any headlines, and it didn’t make the same impact as the overarching all of the other schools that chose to walkout. So I guess, yeah, that was something that we maybe had to consider and at the time we were worried about, but I also, I wouldn’t sell ourselves short as students in understanding the full implications of what was happening at that time. Overall, I think all of the LGBTQ+ students that were impacted by this legislation mostly just wanted community at this time, and they already had targets on their backs. So I think they understood in a way that this was a lot about just finding that community and saying that you don’t support this with the help of the rest of the students in your state and in your school that feel the same way. So I guess I don’t know anyone who maybe took a more anger filled, completely F the institution route.
Alec Patton:
So tell me about that day for you. You wake up on March 1st. How are you feeling?
Waverly Zhao:
Very excited and very stressed because I had to go into work that morning and then sit through, do my office tasks, whatever, and then wait.
Alec Patton:
Really? Why didn’t you just take the whole day off?
Waverly Zhao:
Because I’m a working woman and I also, I didn’t want to completely screw up my routine. Just individually, I’m a very routine-based person so I needed to go to work. I needed to go through the motions of a normal day to help settle my nerves a little bit. Then I left work, went home, changed, brought my megaphone, brought all the posters that we made the night before, and then went to the school. And my walkout went wonderfully. But it definitely, the whole day was like, “Will this actually work? Will people actually come? I don’t know how many people are going to participate.” And I guess for me, it didn’t help that I hadn’t actually been in school for that semester, so it was hard to gauge the feelings of the student body other than what I knew from the clubs I was still a part of and the people who were already tuned into this stuff.
Alec Patton:
So wait. I’m guessing you didn’t just go into a classroom to walkout?
Waverly Zhao:
No, I was already outside. I didn’t actually walkout of the school. I was just standing out in the spot that we had dedicated for the walkout and guiding students out there and passing out posters and stickers and pride flags. Oh, that’s also adults stepped in and supported us by donating a bunch of pride flags, and we were able to distribute them to a lot of different schools throughout the central Iowa area, so that was amazing. I should also mention too, that I did work with the Des Moines schools because they were near the capitol. They wanted to march into it so they all met up and marched into the capitol. I left the capitol to go to my walkout in the suburbs. And then seeing and getting all the news coverage and videos from the organizers and media outlets of all of these students in the capitol was equally as awesome and cool as all of the other walkouts that happened across the state.
Alec Patton:
So by the time you were at your school, you knew it was happening?
Waverly Zhao:
Oh, yeah. By the time ours happened, I already saw the Des Moines schools organizing. And so at the end of the day, it was like at least there’s this happening.
David Lee:
And you have to remember that from the start of the press release, it happened in the course of two weeks, two and a half weeks, and everything was going such a fast-paced. I wasn’t even initially trying to organize a walkout and-
Alec Patton:
Wait, David. Why not?
David Lee:
Because I didn’t know as much as Waverly and Gemma on the issues. And so I wanted to learn about what we exactly were protesting about and make sure the student body understood. And the last time we had been organizing, we did a walkout with the preparation of a month. And we met with the students, talked about the issues, got educated about the specific bills, made preparations for what the route would be like, what the events would be, and making posters and everything. And so beforehand, I had thought that you need at least a month to do a walkout. And in two weeks, I didn’t think that was going to be enough time. But as it turns out, it doesn’t really matter how much time you have when the issues are important to the students. And so the students in Ames actually had been discussing on their own trying to walk out and how that might look like in planning it.
And so four days before the actual walkout happened at Ames, somebody told me that they were really wanting to do a serious walkout, and so I jumped on board with whatever plan they had. I connected them to the administration and we were talking about what would look like for safety and adults chaperoning the students during the event and how to make sure that the students were actually safe. And so these events were happening on their own without even the slightest suggestion from the leaders. We just sent out a press release two weeks, and then everything just started going. And it wasn’t really within our control, every aspect of it. And that’s the parts that really inspired me because these students were going out on their own without my help and without Iowa WTF’s central help just because they saw that other students in the state were doing it and they didn’t want to be left out in this discussion.
Waverly Zhao:
Yeah. And it also expanded past just high school students. Middle school students walked out in my school district and other school districts, and college students on all of our major college campuses as well.
David Lee:
And some of my friends that were older from the year past, they were at University of Iowa and Iowa State and they were texting me, “What was happening?” Hence, the protests that were happening on campus. And that was really cool to see, and I was really proud of everybody that participated.
Waverly Zhao:
I came into work the following day and I was not allowed ever into the Democratic caucus because I’m not a member, but I got a text from my boss saying, “Come down to the caucus room.” And I was like, “Oh, what’s this about?” Because normally I just bring copies down there of bills. So I went down and I was just given a round of applause by the Democratic caucus for organizing, and they extended their gratitude to all of the students that were involved. And it was just so rewarding to see adults that I highly respected pay that respect back and also just understand the effort and work that I put in those two weeks leading up. So that was really cool.
Alec Patton:
That’s awesome. What do you think changed as a result of the walkouts?
Waverly Zhao:
I think what changed was, and because I was told this by my employer, what changed was they finally were able to see that what they were saying and what they were advocating for in the House chamber and the Senate chamber was aligning with what people actually wanted. It felt very rewarding for our elected officials to see students organizing that way and saying enough is enough. Because all of these students were there in this capitol building across the state in a lot of the districts that had elected officials who were supporting this legislation, they were openly saying, “We don’t want this.” And so it was very clear to all of them that they were going down the right path and that this effort was necessary because of all the students that it impacted and all the students that felt like this was such a large enough issue to leave school to organize, to come to the capitol and scream at their legislators, to see them and to hear them and to respect their identities and allow them to exist in their state.
And I think it overall, what changed was students for once felt united and felt that they weren’t completely alone in our state that in our recent past hasn’t been very inclusive and hasn’t been the leader of social justice and civil rights issues as it previously was.
David Lee:
Yeah. The most important thing was I believe the students felt comfortable speaking out for their beliefs even if they were the minority in their districts. And so seeing districts with five people walking out and having the courage to walkout and making sure that they had some type of voice in the state of Iowa where the legislation was trying to constantly silence them. And so being comfortable with what you actually believed in was something that the students learned from that walkout. And right after we saw a bunch of other events happening because of that momentum. And Waverly, Gemma, and I attended a capital rally that following Friday, and that was primarily led by adults but there were a lot of young students milling in the crowd because they had been talking and they had been protesting about those issues that week.
And that connection with the legislators, when I go to the capitol and talk to some of my legislator friends, they’re always saying there’s always lobbyists. They’re always these adult organizations that have an agenda, that they don’t even believe what they’re saying because they’re being paid to do it because what lobbyists are for. And so having youth joining that discussion and being comfortable to say what their perspective is on a bill was so incredible for them because that was something that not a lot of people did before in the past. And now every time I go to the capitol, there’s subcommittee meetings happening and there’s always students for the issues that matter to the public education system. And that to me has been really a proud moment when I get to hear those students talking. And it’s not a result of Iowa WTF’s efforts. It’s a culmination of things, but we were contributing to a environment that lets youth talk about what they believed.
Waverly Zhao:
Yeah, it totally let youth finally into these spaces that have been run by adults despite the fact that a lot of the legislation being passed impacts youth and students the most. So I think that was definitely a more tangible thing that happened was finally, there is a move by leaders and adults in power to include students and include young people in these conversations.
Alec Patton:
All right. I got one final question for you. So most of our listeners are educators, particularly teachers. What is your message for teachers?
Waverly Zhao:
My message to teachers is that firstly, I would like to thank all the teachers that supported me in my efforts when they were limited because of their job and role in our school district into what they could say and how much support they could give. But I think the teachers that want to sit down and have conversations and understand students and what was happening, those teachers are the ones that definitely stood out to me and I keep in my mind. And so we understand as student organizers that maybe you can’t participate in a walkout, but you’re very much a part of this conversation too. And there are small things you can do just behind closed doors. “Hey, congrats on that walkout,” or, “I’ve seen what you’ve been doing and thank you so much. That’s awesome.” Those things really help. We understand your job is important and we would much rather have you in our school day to day and see you than get fired because you attended a walkout.
David Lee:
Yeah. I think on behalf of a lot of students, I would like to say just like thank you for being in those classrooms and making sure that we feel welcomed, because that’s really where all of these desires to do a walkout and to protest for what we believe and make sure our education system is not prohibiting the histories of a lot of the minority students. That’s starts in the classroom. That kind of environment is created by teachers. And whether you are like a literacy teacher or a math teacher or an AP gov teacher, making sure that students feel safe on an individual level and comfortable engaging with the teachers and building meaningful, purposeful relationships that are going to help them throughout their lifetime, and they’re going to be looking back at it and saying, “I really missed that teacher from middle school or high school.”
That’s where all of these efforts start. It’s because adults who care about us, who teach us how to have empathy and who teach us our stories are important, that is the foundation for where we have the courage to go out and talk about these issues and to make sure that we are educating our fellow peers and making sure everyone in the public education system feels like they belong. And so thank you, and I hope that you are able to keep on chugging along and creating those safe spaces and having those conversations, even if it’s not directly saying, “Your history can be taught in this specific class, but we can talk about it afterwards and I can teach you or talk to you about this thing that matters to me. And we can talk about your story that matters to you.” And those kind of efforts, whether it is behind closed doors or not, that is where true learning and true education and true personal growth of a student happens.
Alec Patton:
Thank you both so much. It’s amazing what you all are doing. I’m sorry that you’ve had to do it.
David Lee:
Thank you for…
Waverly Zhao:
Thank you.
David Lee:
… giving us a chance to talk.
Alec Patton:
High Tech High Unboxed is hosted and edited by me, Alec Patton. Our theme music is by Brother Herschel. Huge thanks to Waverly Zhao and David Lee for this conversation. In our show notes, we’ve got a link to the video that David recorded for organizers on the eve of the We Say Gay walkout, as well as some of the press coverage of the walkout. Thanks for listening.
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